


Matters of the Mind

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Knotting, M/M, Omega Verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 01:06:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1449643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The doctor shakes his head. "Omegas can still live very full lives,” in a tone that says <i>omegas don't play hockey</i>.</p>
<p>Phil never forgets it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Matters of the Mind

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [flawsinthevoodoo’s](http://flawsinthevoodoo.tumblr.com/) tumblr prompt. This is my first a/b/o fic, so I apologize for any weird decisions/twists on the trope. In this a/b/o world, there are two types of alphas: alphas who can form low-level bonds with other alphas or betas, and alphas who can soulbond with omegas. Omegas are extremely rare, and, although they share equal rights with alphas and betas, are often discriminated against.

Phil's mom is a hockey mom. The kind of hockey mom who wears her North Face vest over a peewee hockey jersey and yells at the refs until she's thrown out of the arena. Phil's lost count of the number of times he's come out of the locker room to learn that he'll have to meet her in the parking lot.

"Again?" He asks as he nears the car. It's October, raining, just nearing cold out. It's his twelfth birthday. 

She's sitting in the driver's seat of the van, the door open, hands in her vest pockets and ankles crossed against the wet Wisconsin pavement. She shrugs, but she doesn't look contrite. "How many?"

"Hat trick," Phil smiles. He holds up the paper towel he's holding. "Coach gave me extra orange slices." 

"That's good," she says absently, as she opens the trunk. Phil throws his bag in and climbs into the passenger seat, taking a bite of his orange slice. He'd rather have a cupcake, but it's not in his nutrition plan.

His dad does sneak him a piece of cake later, though, and he shares it with Amanda, huddling with her under his quilt with two forks, a flashlight, and The Hockey News.

"I'm going to play like Jaromir Jagr someday," she says around a bite of chocolate fudge. She pokes her frosting-covered fork at the full-page picture celebrating Jagr's latest hat trick.

"Yeah," he agrees, because everyone wants to score goals like Jagr; then, "Girls don't play in the NHL," because they don't.

She shrugs, all nine-year-old bravado. "Doesn't matter."

"Sure," Phil agrees, completely serious. If any of them are going to make it, it's going to be her. 

She smiles, waving her fork as she does it. She leaves a smudge of chocolate on her chin, and when he reaches over to brush it off, she scrunches her nose. "You smell."

"What?" Phil raises his arm and sniffs his pit. He doesn't smell any better or worse then he usually does post-game and post-shower. "Do not."

"Do too." She shoves his shoulder, pushing him out from under their quilt fort. "Gross."

***

She's not the only one who smells it. At breakfast the next morning, his mom wrinkles her nose. "Phil, honey, please shower before breakfast."

"I did."

"Don't lie to me." She whacks his knuckles gently with her spatula. "A little hot water won't make you melt."

Phil frowns, grabbing his own spoon and scooping a full serving of scrambled eggs onto his plate. "I did, I swear. After the game."

His mother glares, but Phil Sr. puts down his fork. It clangs against his orange juice glass and Phil starts, looking up to see his father give his mother a look. "Kathy-"

Phil doesn't know what happens, silently, in that look, but after practice Phil finds himself at a doctor's office. "Office of Pheromonology" reads the sign outside and the waiting room is filled with pastel-colored pamphlets. "How to Tell if Your Child is an Alpha." "Presenting, for Teenagers." "So You Think You've Formed a Souldbond."

Phil is uncomfortable, confused, and would really rather be at the rink. But eventually, the nurse calls him back, into a small room, and leaves him to take off his clothes. 

His mother ties the back of his gown, but there's still a bare slip of skin down his spine, and when he sits back on the fake leather patient's chair, his ass is cold. The whole thing is embarrassing, only made worse when the doctor comes in to prod him, starting with his nipples and ending with a thorough inspection of his penis and balls.

At least they send his mom out of the room before the doctor has Phil put his feet in stir-ups. Phil feels open, cold, vulnerable, as the doctor dips his fingers into a tube of chilled, clear gel for a thorough anal exam.

"Am I okay?" He asks when it's done, pressing his thighs tightly together, unable to shake the sore, exposed feeling.

The doctor makes a few notes on his pad, before turning to Phil. "Have you ever noticed anything different with your genitalia?"

"Ahh," Phil feels his face heat. "Well, it's always been a little small." Phil had always assumed that was because he plays with older kids, who have had more time to mature. Surely he'll get bigger, too.

"Hmm," the doctor hums, makes a few notes, then smiles, putting a hand on Phil's knee. It makes Phil uncomfortable. "Well, you're quite healthy. We'll know more about what's going on when your blood work comes back."

Phil's blood work is pretty conclusive.

"An omega?" Kathy repeats, after the doctor brings her in to hear the diagnosis. "Are you sure?" She asks it like everything she’s dreamed about, for him, for their family, is wrapped up in the answer.

The doctor flips to a page of Phil's chart that's covered in graphs and chromosomes and things that look like doodles to Phil. "See? Here and here. It's very rare, but, his pheromone levels are conclusive. Phil is an omega."

"Is there anything we can do?" Kathy asks, sounding sad and desperate. Phil doesn't really understand it. 

The doctor shakes his head. "Omegas can still live very full lives."

"He was going to be a hockey player." Past tense.

"Oh," the doctor says, in a tone that says _omegas don't play hockey_.

Phil never forgets it.

***

Not when his mom says "we didn't sacrifice our lives for hockey to be stopped now" the same way she talks to opponents' parents. Sometimes, Phil thinks, his mom cares more about him playing hockey then he does.

He doesn't complain, though, when his parents find a Vietnamese doctor in Vancouver's Chinatown. She prods Phil, worse than his doctor in Wisconsin did, then asks, "What's your pain tolerance?"

"High," Phil says, because he might be an omega, but he's a hockey player before he's anything else.

She looks him up and down for a long time, naked, not quite grown out of his baby fat, and shivering with cold and nerves, before she hands over a bottle of unmarked pills in exchange for a roll of Canadian bills his mom pulls from her purse. 

"One every day. Same time. They're gonna hurt, you hear?"

Phil nods. "I'll take them."

She wasn't lying. The pain is worse than Phil's ever felt, but his mother starts smiling again and his sister stops wrinkling her nose around him and Coaches stop asking him to prove that he's a beta.

Phil never misses a pill.

***

_Omegas don’t play hockey._

Phil remembers, when he struggles through his Combine, the week before his scheduled yearly heat. His body is hot, hormonal, and partially rejecting his Beta pheromone pills and heat suppressants. He knows it makes him an asshole, short with the other draftees and snappy in at least his Nashville and Pittsburgh interviews.

Phil’s lucky.

It only drops him to 5th.

He's an omega. And he's playing in the NHL.

***

Phil doesn’t forget.

Not when he gets to Toronto and, at his first training camp, feels the beginnings of a soulbond pulling at his mind, his dick, his ass. For the first time outside of his scheduled heats, he starts producing slick, and he's half-hard every moment of the two months it takes him to find a doctor in Toronto.

He steals a pamphlet - "Soulbonds for Dummies" - from the trainers' room in Toronto, sneaking in when no one's around and shoving it into the inside pocket of his jacket. Phil hates pamphlets. They're embarrassing.

He doesn't know much about soulbonds, though, and he's not about to ask the trainers for advice. He just got to Toronto; he's not about to fuck it up like he did in Boston.

He doesn't take it out until he's locked in his apartment, the chain set, and no chance of anyone seeing him but Stella. He settles at his kitchen table, boxers wet with slick and bond center just bright enough in the back of his mind that he can't ignore it. Stella climbs onto the chair next to him, resting her head on the table and whining. He pets between her ears.

"Don't judge me."

She whines again. He opens the pamphlet, anyway.

_10 Things You Should Know About Soulbonds_

_1\. Only omegas and soulbonded alphas can form soulbonds._

_2\. Soulbonds have been around for as long as humans have. (see Image 1: picture of soulbonded cavemen)_

_3\. Soulbonds are stronger than the typical alpha- or beta- bond. 60 countries around the world have passed Ethical Bond laws to curtail any unfair advantages soulbonded pairs might have._

_4\. Soulbonds are the psychological manifestation of a biological necessity. Omegas cannot choose to or not to soulbond._

Phil stops reading. If he found pills to mask his omega scent, surely he'll be able to find a doctor to stop his soulbond.

***

She's old, frail, wrinkled, and wise. Her office, though, is just as dirty and dark as the Vancouver office had been, hidden behind a spice emporium that smells strongly of Cardamom. There's a faded picture of Chaing Mai on her wall.

“From there?"

She glances at the picture, her face slack and happy. "Yes, yes. Beautiful, spiritual place."

"I bet." Phil wishes he was a spiritual guy. His dad used to read books about Buddhism and, when he was little, Phil had always liked the pictures. They looked peaceful, calm, in a way Phil's mind is not, will never be, without a bond. Phil tries to emulate them. The pictures, of monasteries and gravestones covered in moss older than anything Phil’s ever seen before. Sometimes it works. Sometimes he's just an asshole.

"So," she moves her chair closer, reaching between his legs with warm, worn hands. "You want to stop a soulbond?"

"Yes," he says, a little strangled, his eyes on the ceiling. This is no less embarrassing than it was when he was twelve.

"A souldbond is a wonderful thing. It will ground you."

For a moment, Phil lets himself get lost in his bond, allows himself to stop fighting it, to feel the warmth and comfort and embrace of it. But, no, he can't do that to his bondmate. Can't saddle someone else with the only omega in professional sports. Can't ask his bondmate to hide and sneak around and- 

Dr. Kwon slaps him and he pulls his mind back, re-erecting his walls brick-by-brick.

"I understand," she says, and Phil believes that she does. She looks pitying, sad, determined. Phil figures he looks a lot the same most days.

She doesn't ask if he can handle the pain, just takes his money and sticks a needle into his bicep. It burns, a hot, painful spark that spreads through his chest and has nothing on the crushing, unbearable silence in his head.

"Fuck." He drops his head into his hands, spreading his fingers along his temples in an attempt to get it back, to feel something, anything, in the gaping hole where his bond center should be.

"It will get better." He feels a fragile, leathery hand on his wrist and he grasps onto it. "Although shutting down a bond center is an unnatural affair. The pain will never truly go away."

He grunts, not fighting as she helps him lie down. He doesn't know how much time passes as he struggles with the hole in his head, until, finally, he starts building a brick wall, not over the tug of his bond, but over the wide, gaping hole.

"Three months, Mr. Kessel," she tells him, when he thinks he's steady enough to leave. Three months until he has to go through this again. 

Outside, the sun is shining. Phil closes his eyes against it.

***

The shots work for three years. Dr. Kwon was right, the pain never really goes away, just settles with a low, pulsing ache against his walls. Phil can function, though, can skate and score goals and live a fairly normal life.

So, when Bozie comes back from the lockout with no place to stay, Phil ignores the ache in the back of his mind and offers him a room. 

"Phil," his mother chastises, when he tells her about it. "You know that he can't find out about your-" _condition_ "designation." She still can’t say it, even after all these years, as if, somehow, he’s let her down, ruined what she wanted for him. As if Phil had had a choice; as if he wasn’t doing everything to fix it the best he can now.

"He won't." Phil promises, because he likes living with people. He's been pretty lonely the last few years, and he likes Bozie. "I have it under control."

He does, too. Mostly, at least, bar the few, strange moments that Phil refuses to think about.

Like the afternoon on the road when Bozie collapses next to Phil on Phil's bed, body pressed the length of Phil's side. "Go away," Phil mutters. Bozie's body is too warm.

"'s too far."

Phil rolls over, not sure if Bozie's trying to tell Phil to take the other bed, or-

Bozie grabs his wrist. "Sleep. Won't bond with you."

"Ahh." Phil wasn't worried about that. Omegas can’t form spontaneous bonds. Neither can soulbonded alphas.

"Can't," Bozie promises, tiredly, already half-asleep.

Phil doesn't sleep. He doesn't know if Bozie meant that, or if Bozie was just rambling nonsense in his sleep. Soulbonded alphas are rare, as rare as omegas. Phil feels like he would know, though, if Bozie was soulbonded, even with his bond-blockers. 

When Bozie wakes up, Phil pretends to have napped, and gets up to take a double dose of his beta pills. Bozie doesn't mention bonding again.

***

The next time, Phil's lounging on their couch, watching SportsCenter with Stella resting on the cushions above his head. Bozie comes in from a run, smelling strongly of scent and alpha pheromones as he collapses next to Phil, chugging a water bottle. Phil breathes, deeply, his body self-lubricating and going half-hard in his sweatpants. They hide nothing.

"You okay?" Bozie asks, his adam's apple moving as he finishes the water, pushing his long hair out of his eyes.

Phil swallows, pushing on the barriers in his mind to keep them from falling. "Fine."

"You look-" Bozie shrugs, "kind of pale, or something."

Phil doubts that. His whole body feels warm and flushed. His boxers are wet and he only hopes he's not leaking into the cushions. "Your mom looks pale."

Bozie raises an eyebrow.

Phil rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, my chirps are lame."

"No argument here, buddy." Bozie's knee brushes Phil's as he stands. "I'm gonna shower. I smell terrible."

Phil doesn't tell Bozie that he smells anything but terrible. Bozie wouldn't want to hear that. Not from an omega. Not from Phil.

When Phil can hear the shower running, he risks standing and disappears into his room with a vibrator that he pushes deep into his ass. He'll never admit that he imagines it's Bozie's dick.

***

Phil doubles his beta pills after that, and they stave off his attraction to Bozie. Which is good, because if Phil should be attracted to anyone, it should be to his soulmate. Whoever, in the Greater Toronto Area, his soulmate might be.

Living with Bozie, though, is torture mentally, even as his physical responses are chemically inhibited. The pills and the shots do nothing to stop Phil's imagination. And he think about Bozie. All the time.

He thinks about Bozie's mouth as Bozie leans over to steal Phil's beer, leaving his arm around Phil's chair, lips wide and red and wet around the neck of the beer.

He thinks about Bozie's hands when Phil sits close to him on the couch, Bozie's fingers twitching against Phil's thigh.

He thinks about Bozie's voice, low and broken over Phil's name, when the guys are over to play Mario Kart and Bozie leans close, whispering chirps and instructions in Phil's ear. Phil always loses. It has a lot less to do with Phil's reflexes and a lot more to do with Bozie's body pressed against his.

He thinks about Bozie and Phil _wants_.

***

The pills work until the Leafs lose a 4-1 lead to the Bruins in Game 7 of the first round of the 2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Phil goes on a bender, a weekend drinking with his teammates, pressed tightly against Bozie in booths and chairs and on dance floors. Phil hurts, his mind, his body, but, sometimes, for minutes at a time, he presses his thigh against Bozie's and forgets about their epic collapse. Bozie seems to feel it, too, as he presses his palm to Phil's knee on the morning of the second day and doesn't move it again.

On Monday, Bozie leaves for Regina, still drunk and sore, and he hugs Phil extra-long when Phil drops him off at the airport.

Phil barely gets home before he starts an un-planned, five-day heat. It hits him the moment he closes the door, and it hits harder than a heat has ever hit him before.

He thanks the hockey gods, if not for helping the Leafs on the ice, than at least for Amazon's overnight shipping policy. Immediately, he orders a box of toys that shows up at his front door early the second morning. 

He puts a weekend's worth of food and water down for Stella, then spends the next three and a half days locked in his bedroom with a Leafs-blue dildo in his ass. Stella spends most of it whining at his door. Phil is the worst parent ever.

It's a useless exercise, anyway. Phil tries ribbed dildos, knotted dildos, vibrating dildos and cock rings and ass massagers, until his arms are tired and his head is pounding and his knees are bruised and sore. It's not enough. Not nearly enough; all it does is leave him empty, unsatisfied, desperate for something real and physical and warm. 

He has yearly scheduled heats, and in past years he's gone to a hotel, jerked off a bit, played around with his prostate, and emerged three days later feeling sated and full and ready for the next season. This heat, though, burns through Phil, leaving him shaky and needy and relieved that Bozie's already left to lick his wounds in Regina. Phil's not sure he'd be able to hide his attraction from Bozie in this condition, and Bozie wouldn't want that, would probably walk out the door and end their friendship forever.

Phil cringes just thinking about it. His ass is wet and he shifts onto his back, heels pressed into the mattress as he reaches for the phone.

"You have a soulbond now," Dr. Kwon explains, sounding frail even over the phone.

"Are my heats-" Phil gasps as he shifts, pushing the dildo tightly against his prostate. "- always going to be like this?"

"Yes."

Perfect. Phil starts making contingency plans in his head, ways to schedule his heats around Bozie's trips home. He doesn’t ever want Bozie to see him like this. "Right."

She's already hung up.

He doesn't know how much time passes. Phil's mind is swathed in red and orange, itchy and muggy. He's exhausted when, in a moment of incredible weakness in the deep of his heat, when toys and his fingers are doing nothing to quell the need in his mind, he drops his walls. 

Just for a moment. 

It's enough. 

He feels Bozie, his mind bright and strong and free, a little drunk, a little sad, but soothing against Phil's. With the last bit of strength he has, Phil slams his walls closed before he can sink into it. It's the hardest thing he's ever done.

He lies there, stretched out on the bed, lost in his mind, ignorant of his body as it suffers through the rest of his heat. His body has nothing on this.

Bozie is his soulmate. Bozie is _his_. His alpha. His partner, biologically, psychologically.

Phil probably should have known. Should have guessed. 

He can't forget now.

It gets harder to take his pills after that.

***

The media blames Team USA's Sochi meltdown on the number of betas on the team. Six, in total, next to Team Canada's 0 and Team Sweden's 2. 

"They're assholes," T.J. complains, dropping his iPad onto Phil's bed as he collapses onto Reemer's. Reemer’s out, probably drinking Russian vodka with the other alphas. Russia has particular feelings about non-alpha athletes, though, so Phil hadn’t asked exactly where Reemer was going.

He grabs the iPad. The article's in Russian.

T.J. waves at him. "I got Vlad to translate it." 

"Helpful." Phil thumbs through it anyway. The word for 'beta' in Russian is still 'beta,' and Phil picks it out eight times in the article.

"Betas can still play hockey. We're _great_ at hockey. I'm T.J. Sochi and you-" he waves at Phil. He's clearly had a few shots already this morning. Phil blames Tarasenko. "- are gonna be named forward of the tournament."

"Right." Phil's heart is hammering in his chest. Of course. Phil's setting an example for young beta hockey players everywhere. If they only knew. Not for the first time, Phil wishes it was possible to take alpha pills, but no amount of money can get him something biologists – even the illegal ones he finds in seedy doctor’s offices behind Spice Emporiums in major Canadian cities - haven't discovered yet.

The door slams open. "Hey, is this a beta pity party, 'cause I am so down with that." Pat Kane joins them in the room, forcing Phil to move over on his bed. Phil's never quite understood why Kaner holds such a grudge against T.J., but he moves over, making sure to kick Kaner's side as he does so.

"Yeah," Phil agrees. He tunes T.J. and Kaner out as he flips through T.J.'s news app, opening one of the 'Putin's Anti-Omega Laws Endanger the Spirit of the Games' articles that have been all over the news the past few months. 

He pushes, just for a second, on the walls that cover his bond center, the walls that ache painfully, bruised and hot when he’s stressed. For him, being a beta isn't so bad.

***

"Stop," Amanda tells him, rolling her eyes as she clutches harder at his arm. "You didn't lose because you're an omega."

"Sure," Phil appeases her. They're sitting on the stairs outside of Amanda's dorm in the Olympic Village. It's almost warm outside, sunny and not at all how Phil expected Russia to be. He pulls Amanda closer into his side anyway.

"I'm an alpha. And I lost." Phil wipes the tear from her cheek. Amanda pretends not to notice.

"Omegas are bad for team dynamics." Phil's voice sounds mechanical to his own ears as he parrots back every pamphlet, every doctor, every coach’s lecture he's heard on the subject.

Amanda punches his shoulder. Hard. "You don't even smell like an omega." Which isn't a denial and, suddenly, Phil feels nauseous. He's exhausted, frustrated with his performance and Amanda's, and sore with the pressure of holding Team USA on his shoulders. He pulls away, missing the warmth of Amanda's body, but ignoring it.

She sways, but catches herself against the stoop and narrows her eyes at him. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Phil-" He stares her down. She's better at it than he is, even with her eyes red and wide with the remnants of her disappointing silver medal. "You're a terrible liar."

"I-" Phil swallows. "I soulbonded." He frowns. "Started to bond?"

"What?" Her voice is loud, brittle, and he flinches. "Phil."

"I know, I know." He glances down, at the toe of the neon-yellow sneakers Nike supplied for Team USA, unable to look at her eyes. He hates disappointing his sister. "I took care of it. Don't worry."

"Don't-? I'm gonna worry if I want to." She sounds angry. Phil doesn't look up. "And how the fuck did you 'take care of it'?"

"I found a woman." Phil thinks about Dr. Kwon and Chaing Mai. He needs to schedule his next shot soon after he gets back. "She gives me shots, to mask the bond."

"They can do that?"

Phil shrugs. "I guess."

"Hey," she wraps her fingers around his bicep. Her knuckles are white. He stares at them. "Do you know who it is?"

He shakes his head. "It's faint. Just-" He waves at the space where the bond pulls at the back of his mind, even behind his walls. "A little tug."

"Oh," she sounds sad. "I'm sorry."

His chest aches. He's not sure why. "Don't be." He glances at her. Her hair is down, framing her face, and she's looking at him through it, eyelashes long and damp. Objectively, she's beautiful. Genetics aren't really fair.

"Your alpha must miss you."

Phil hadn't ever thought of it that way before. He thinks about Bozie, sexually, all the times. And, sometimes, when he's tired, or jacking off in the shower, or watching Remember the Titans and pretending not to tear up, he thinks about Bozie as his soulmate, about what they're supposed to be sharing, about what Phil's missing out on. It never seems like anything compared to what he'd be giving up to let Bozie in, as his alphas, as his soulmate. He'd- "Never thought about that. My alpha."

"It's an ache, in the back of my mind. All the time." She motions to the same part of her head that pulls at Phil's mind. "Waiting for me to bond. And I can't soulbond. Your alpha though-" She shudders. "He must miss you miserably."

Phil kind of doubts that. Soulbonded alphas are rare, as rare as omegas, and Phil doesn't know why any alpha would want to be tied, forever, to an omega, given the choice. Especially not Bozie. Bozie’s young and happy and shyer than he lets on. Phil's doing him a favor, really, by shutting down their bond.

"You must miss him, too." Amanda scoots closer again, wrapping her elbow around his and resting her head on his shoulder.

***

Phil doesn't miss a pill on purpose. He's just so tired, jet-lagged, confused with a cold and daylight savings time and the last two, terrible games in Sochi. It's just his bad luck that he misses two pills in a row, the week before he's due for a shot.

His defenses are weak, wobbly in his mind, and he pushes on them, mentally leans against them. He doesn't know they've toppled until they do.

Then, physically, he's in bed, surrounded by kleenex and Gatorade and Stella, but his mind is filled with Bozie. Powerful and shy and steel blue, overwhelming Phil's head, his nose, his hormones. 

Phil doesn't know how much time passes as he scrambles at his walls, trying to erect them again. They're red and hot, burning where he pushes against them, and he recoils. It's a useless exercise, anyway. He can't sort his mind from Bozie's, doesn't know if he's pushing at his end of their soulbond or Bozie's, and, in the end, it doesn't matter. Because Bozie's there, in his head, loud and bright and Phil isn't going to be able to hide it this time.

Phil doesn't want to hide it this time.

The door to Phil's bedroom slams open and there's Bozie, sweaty and breathing heavily, still dressed in his under armour from practice. His whole body is shaking, Phil can see that from here, and he must have been on the ice when their bond hit. Which means, "You shouldn't have driven."

That's not what Phil meant to start with.

"Reemer dropped me off." Bozie's voice is high, thin, riding at the top of his heavy breathing, but he still answers Phil, reassures him, sends out a soothing, purple touch to the part of Phil's mind that is imagining Bozie wrapping his car around a tree.

Phil takes a deep breath and admits, "I'm an omega," because it seems important. It seems like something he should have admitted a long time ago. Seems like something Bozie should have known.

"We're _bonded_ ," Bozie parallels, as if it's all that matters, as if Phil's status isn't important at all. Phil has no idea how he's gone so long without him.

"Yeah." Phil swallows.

"Phil." Bozie's knuckles are white where he's clutching the doorframe. "Phil."

Phil feels awful. This is his fault, his biological designation, his hormones, and Bozie shouldn't, can't, won't be responsible for that. "I'm sorry."

"Don't-" Bozie's fists clench and his body sways as he lets go of his grip on the wall. "Don't ever say that. 

His mind feels sad, vulnerable, miserable against Phil's, and it hits Phil, then, what Amanda had said. _He must miss you terribly_. It seems too much to wish for but maybe, just maybe, she was at least a little bit right. "I'm sorry," Phil repeats, this time not for his status, but for holding off the bond and keeping it from Bozie for so long. 

Bozie seems to get it, this time, and he stumbles forward, sinking onto the bed next to Phil and closing his eyes. In his mind, Phil can feel Bozie reach out for Phil's bond center, ice blue and cold where it's languished for years behind the walls Phil built and never let down. Bozie wraps himself around it, pulses warmth and affection and all the things he's been feeling for Phil for years. It's too much, too fast, but Phil reaches for it, craving it.

"I'm an omega," Phil protests, weakly, softly, even as he feels his mind warm and soften under Bozie's touch. "I'm a hockey player." _I can't be your soulmate._

"You're my winger," Bozie promises, as if that settles everything, as if it's as simple as that.

"You're my center," Phil challenges, partly out of spite, partly because he's never been a very good omega, and partly because this is all so much more than he's ever allowed himself to think about.

"Yeah," Bozie agrees, grinning. Phil falls for him all over again and Bozie's grin widens, his mind pulsing brightly around Phil's bond center. "I fell for you years ago," he admits. 

Phil can feel the truth in it, feel how painful it's been for Bozie to have the beginnings of a bond, like a live wire in his mind, without any of the defenses Phil's built over the years. Phil aches for him. "I'm an asshole," Phil states. An apology, a warning, a statement of fact.

Bozie shrugs. "Knew that already. Wouldn't expect anything different from a hockey player."

And Phil can feel the truth in that, too. Bozie thinks of him as a hockey player first and an omega second and, for the first time since he was twelve years old, Phil just might believe that.

"Yeah," Bozie agrees, answering Phil's mind, if not his words, and leans forward, his forehead bracing against Phil's and his erection pressing into Phil's hip. "Sorry," Bozie apologizes, ridiculously, and pulls his hips away.

Now that Phil's mind is warm, he's aware of just how his body is responding to the consummation of their soulbond. His ass is wet, leaking through his boxers, his erection tenting his sweatpants, and his clothes feel itchy and constricting. 

He pulls at the collar of his t-shirt, getting it away from his skin, and then Bozie's in front of him, kneeling on the bed and Phil wonders, fleetingly, where Stella's gotten to, before Bozie's kissing him and Phil forgets to care about Stella as he falls into Bozie, his mind reaching out at the same time as his body arches into Bozie's.

Bozie's hands scramble at his waist, his knees bumping into Phil's thighs, and Phil feels a sharp, painful spike of fear. It takes him a moment to realize it came from him.

He pulls back, his eyes closed against Bozie's face, as he whispers, "I haven't," because he's had sex before, of course he has, but never alpha sex, and never near his heat. He couldn't ever risk it before. 

"Me neither," Bozie says, then amends, "With an omega," casually, as if saying it isn't difficult or dirty or everything Phil's shied away from his entire life.

"Right."

Bozie shrugs. "We've got this, yeah?"

And it's ridiculous, because Bozie's deferring to him, trusting Phil to have the answers and take control, when all Phil can think about is _more_ and _want_ and _so warm_ , but all he's getting from Bozie is _yes_ and finally and _love_ , so Phil figures, maybe, he is the one in better shape here. "Yeah, buddy, we've got this."

"Good, cause," Bozie pulls him in, lets Phil see how close he is to the edge already, just from their minds touching, and Phil laughs, grasps Bozie's ass and pulls him closer. Bozie grunts, leaning down to catch Phil's mouth on his, and Phil arches up, catching Bozie's erection with his own, and that's all the patience Bozie has.

Bozie's hands are on him, pulling his shirt over his head, pushing back the sheets and wrapping his fingers in Phil's boxers to pull them down. Naked and open, Phil's smell hits Bozie, but, instead of the scrunched noise and the frown Phil always gets from his mother and sister, Bozie's mouth goes slack and he reaches down to wrap around his balls, tugging hard to keep himself from coming from Phil’s smell alone. 

It's incredibly hot, and Phil reaches out, pushes Bozie's hand away and strips him of his clothing. He's seen Bozie before, seen him naked and wet under the sprays in the shower, but never like this, with his dick red and purple, curled against his belly and knot half-swollen. He stares.

"Stop," Bozie laughs, sending a flash of embarrassment through their bond and Phil rolls his eyes.

"Don't play coy." He sends Bozie a picture of himself, the way he looks through Phil's eyes, and Bozie ducks his head. Bozie’s dick twitches against his stomach, leaking precome into the dark trail of hair there, and Phil shifts, uncomfortably, against the sheets.

"Hey," Bozie reaches out, running his index finger down the outside of Phil's thigh, knee to hip, soft and calloused and Phil shivers. He pauses, glances at Phil, then continues, up the underside of Phil's dick, where it lies curled in the crease of Phil's hip. Phil is smaller than Bozie, pale pink with a dark vein running up the side, but, in Bozie’s mind, Phil’s beautiful.

Phil leans forward, crowding against Bozie's mouth, wanting the assurance, the closeness of their minds when they're kissing. "Always, Phil," Bozie answers Phil's unspoken question, "whatever you need."

Phil doesn't answer, just runs his hands along every inch of Bozie's skin, pushing himself closer until Bozie gets his hands on Phil's ass, carefully, gently, reverently lifting him so that he's sitting on the tops of Bozie's thighs, Phil’s slick leaving them wet and cool. Bozie groans, sending a wave of longing that shutters through Phil. 

"Can I?" Bozie asks, thumb tracing the cleft of Phil's ass, stuttering over Phil's hole as he reaches it.

Phil bites his lip, "yes," before he can think himself out of it, and then he feels the blunt tip of Bozie's finger in him, just an inch, just enough to remind himself that he's Bozie's. Forever. "Yes," he repeats, sending a wave of assurance and _more_ at Bozie.

Bozie chuckles, holding his fingertip just inside of Phil as he shifts them, pushing Phil back against the bed and stretching out on top of him. He grinds down, the head of his cock catching in the light patch of hair around Phil's groin and Phil arches his hips to meet him. The movement pushes Bozie's finger further into Phil's ass, and they both moan.

"I'm not gonna last," Bozie reminds Phil, and Phil nods.

"Yeah. I'm ready."

"Sure? I haven't prepared-" Bozie looks stricken, torn between the pressure in his knot and the need to protect his bondmate, and Phil pulls him down for a messy kiss.

"I'm good," Phil promises, spreading his knees so that Bozie can see the slick dripping down the tops of his thighs. Bozie chuckles, to cover the sharp pulse of arousal he can't hold back, and guides himself inside.

It doesn't start slow. They're both too far gone for that, and Bozie's knot is already starting to swell before he gets the tip of his dick inside. The room fills with the sounds of flesh on flesh, of the slick around Bozie's cock every time he thrusts, and the harsh breaths Phil lets out every time Bozie's knot catches.

And then Bozie’s grunting, bracing his palms on the mattress on either side of Phil's head, and pushing his knot through the tightness at the edge of Phil's passage, and then he's locked inside, the head of his dick pressed against Phil's prostate, and Phil comes, painting both their chests with it. 

"God," Bozie murmurs, holding still, just barely, until Phil's recovered enough to wrap his left leg around Bozie's hip and press, hard, with his heel. Bozie gets the message, pushing forward, moving shallowly, as much as the knot will allow. His mind is burning against Phil's, losing all coherency as he presses as deep as he can and starts to come in long, deep spurts that Phil can feel, deep inside.

It's only about a minute, this first time, before Bozie drops his head to the crook of Phil's neck and pants into his skin. "Thank you," his whispers, and Phil presses, again, with his heel. Bozie grunts, his hips thrusting forward and releasing another few spurts of come. "Unf, God, Phil."

"I didn't know," Phil admits, turning his nose to press into the side of Bozie's head. "Not that it would be like this. I'm sorry."

Bozie doesn't deny it this time, doesn't pretend that they couldn't have had this three years ago, but, with a lot of effort, lifts himself onto his elbow and kisses Phil deeply, with tongue and intent, and Phil loses himself in Bozie's mind, in the pleasure Bozie feels as he starts to thrust again. Short, tight thrusts, tugging at Phil's ass and pushing in as far as he can. 

Bozie closes his eyes, leaning on his elbows and digging his toes into the mattress for leverage, surrendering to Phil's mind as he comes again, his muscles tightening and his whole body shaking over Phil's. Phil gentles him through it, pressing kisses to his hair, rubbing his hands over Bozie's back, wrapping his mind around Bozie's and taking his own pleasure there.

Long minutes later, Bozie stills, his mind cooling to a light pink, and he pulls himself up onto his hand. "Hey," he murmurs.

"Hey," Phil smiles, that stupid, lop-sided Kessel smile, as he pulls out of Bozie’s mind and back to his own body. They're still tied together, will be for a while yet, and Phil straightens his legs on either side of Bozie's thighs, shaking them out.

Bozie shifts, carefully, twisting them so that he can spoon behind Phil, pulling him close. The head of his dick settles relentlessly over Phil's prostate, and Phil's exhausted, strung-out, but he can't ignore the way Bozie jumps and thrusts and pulses inside him. Bozie grins in Phil's ear, reaching around to wrap his palm around Phil's growing erection.

He doesn't pump hard, just runs a finger up and down the vein on the side of Phil's dick, scraping under the head and letting the pad of his thumb rest, quietly, for long seconds, against the drop of precome on the tip. It's pleasant, the low thrum of arousal barely acknowledged under Phil's skin as he rests back against Bozie's chest, sighing into it.

Phil can feel it, the moment it switches to need, the arousal in his chest amplified by the arousal in Bozie's, bouncing off of Phil's mind and down his spine to the knot holding them together. Bozie lifts a leg, resting his thigh over Phil's hip, and thrusting forward. It pushes him deeper into Phil, more steadily against Phil's prostate, and Phil groans. He wants to come.

"Please," he pushes back, into Bozie's hand and into Bozie's knot.

Bozie's fist tightens. "Come for me." Phil does, in short, sated strings against Bozie's fist. Bozie fucks him through it, thrusting as hard as he can, desperate, again, for his own release, grunting in pleasure and frustration. He wraps his hand around Phil's hip, leaving wet, white, come-stained imprints on Phil's pale skin as he pushes, hard into Phil's body.

He comes for a long time, longer, deeper, slower spurts with each thrust until Bozie collapses, exhausted, onto his pillow. Phil glances back, his hand wrapping around Bozie's on his hip. "Okay?"

Bozie smiles, sated and happy and tired. "Perfect. You?"

Phil thinks about it for a moment. Thinks about the years he denied this, thinks about why, thinks about how it feels to score a playoff goal, how it would feel to win a Cup. Bozie reaches out, tentatively, tugging at Phil's bond center, now shining a dark, warm, happy blue, and Phil reaches back. 

"Someday we'll win a Cup, so I can compare."

Bozie laughs, pressing a kiss to Phil's shoulder. _Competitive asshole_ he sends, mentally. 

Phil laughs, already beginning to heal.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! If you want to chat about Phil and Bozie comment here or find me on [tumblr](http://stainyourhands.tumblr.com/)!


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